She Was The Kind Of Girl Who Quietly Looked At The People Around Her And Missed Them In This Moment Before

“without your looming shadow, i can finally shine.”

- abby

“A hero is a person or character who is admired for their courage, achievements, noble qualities, who looks fear in the eyes and doesn’t even blink.”

That is the quote I saw on the wall of my sixth grade students classroom today. I strongly disagree.

All humans have hesitated. It’s instinct. It’s vital. It’s as strong as your heart beating. It is the culmination of thousands of years of survival. Hesitation is a universal experience.

Therefore, a hero always “blinks.” That ‘blink’ is the moment that human beings realize what they are doing. That singular defining moment that changes the gravity of the situation. The exact second that the given circumstances could produce a hero if the right choices are made.

Humans program robots. Robots don’t blink. If a robot were to walk through a path of throwing knives without blinking, would it be a hero? No, of course not. But by the first definition, they technically would be. The reasoning as to why they aren’t? Because the robot faces no repercussions. The robot has no risk. The robot has no real understanding of the danger, nor have they been forced to confront the facts of what they are up against.

That's where we come to our hero blinking. In order to be a hero, you must blink. You must have a moment to see the horrors that all logic would tell to run. Because it’s in that blink that the hero confronts the danger they put themselves in, and pushes forth anyways. That is what makes a hero. To have that shackling sensation of hesitation, and where most others would turn back, they trailblaze on. They trailblaze on anyway.

So here I propose a new definition:

“A hero is a person or character who is admired for their courage, achievements, and noble qualities, who looks fear in the eyes, blinks, and despite facing the world’s darkness, chooses to continue being the world’s light.”

…

fifth

thirteenth

twenty-second 🍁

twenty-third

twenty-fourth

LOVE, DEAR ABBY

“And like the moon, I have gone through countless phases of emptiness before feeling whole again.”

“he only saw her light for a fraction of time, yet he would never forget her sunrise.”

- abby

“If there’s a sun in my solar system, it’s you.”

- abby

KEYCHAIN.

Walking two miles in the night rain, crying, shaking, nervous,

Feeling like Red Riding Hood,

standing on my grandmothers porch, How do I tell her,

her son’s the Big Bad Wolf?

She tells me in public that effort goes both ways,

That I need to try harder,

She knows that he’s made his choice,

That he doesn’t care and that he’s no father,

The fact that in public, she’ll tell me one thing

and in private, something different

It’s all an illusion and smoke screen.

I know that I was never important.

Holding that stupid keychain is proof that I never stopped trying,

So often I try to make plans and he’d put me off every time,

She’d look at me as I cried to her, with her own crocodile tears,

I don’t know how her son being a deadbeat isnt one of her biggest fears.

And so I left with that same keychain, not knowing what to do with it

Maybe I’d throw it in the woods or a lake, but I couldn’t go through with it.

I held onto that thing for a goddamn year and it taunted me every day

Until I eventually found the person it belonged to, the person with whom it was meant to stay,

I had a whole speech ready to recite upon giving him that keychain,

But of course, when it came time to actually do it, I had nothing in my brain.

I stuttered and rushed and mumbled hoping that whatever I said,

Would still carry its meaning and at the very least make sense.

To my surprise he actually cared, and used his words to convey,

How much he loved and was honored that I’d given him the keychain.

Immediately, he hung it up somewhere safe, making me feel like a daughter,

It was then that I realized I had missed out on what it felt like to have a father.

LOVE, DEAR ABBY

Sorry about the clothes on my back being in the way when you stabbed me

Work on yourself.

Make your morning routine as invigorating as a cup of coffee.

Make the little moments throughout the day the big points you look forward to.

Make yourself your favorite person.

Make yourself put in the hard work to get out the most you can.

Make yourself someone you are genuinely proud of.

Make yourself reflect on the outside what you already were on the inside:

more than enough for them.

- abby

“…and it was that day I realized it was hopeless; for I was simply a mosaic of everyone I’d ever loved.”